Many Happy Returns
by Devil's Shadows
Summary: Huey is pissed off. Tom has been kicked out of his house again, Jazmine is even more of an emotional train wreck than usual, and he STILL has to get Riley a present for his birthday. What else could go wrong?
1. Another Day

He looked over at the clock next to his bed and felt his left eye twitch with rage. It was six in the morning, exactly, and he was absolutely furious to be woken up a full hour before he needed to be. School wasn't until eight, after all. Huey sat up in his bed, glaring at his brother Riley as he was currently shaking him by the shoulders – something which Huey quickly stopped by shoving him off.

"What the hell, Riley?!"

"You gotta see this shit!" Huey continued to glare as his brother persisted in tugging at his sleeve. Naturally, he had some misgivings about why his younger sibling felt the need to wake him up since the two of them had vastly different opinions about what was and was not important. And judging from the way Riley was grinning, he thought that this was highly demanding of attention. Reluctantly enough, he climbed from his bed, still in his pajamas and strode over to the window with his brother, who quickly pointed down to the street. At first, Huey saw nothing. It was too dark, since the sun hadn't come up yet, so he rubbed at his eyes and tried to focus.

Down in the street, it seemed that Tom was being thrown out yet again. At least, that's what it seemed like: his wife Sarah was screaming her lungs out at him from the bedroom window while he stood outside in true Romeo fashion, pleading with her. That didn't seem to be working, because at random intervals, she would throw out some of his clothing or a belonging of his – and if it was something that could do damage, she was aiming at him. For his part, Tom was standing outside shivering since he wasn't wearing much else besides his boxers. Riley snickered to himself and slid open the window, a gust of cold autumn air rushing through Huey's afro.

"Boooo! 'Ey, Tom! Put some fuckin' pants on! Sarah! …take your pants off!"

Huey sighed to himself and went back to bed as his brother continued to instigate the couple next door, cramming a pillow over his head to partially block it all out. _Ugh. It's going to be one of those days._

"I am the stone that the builder refused…" Forty minutes later, Huey's radio alarm clock kicked in, right at the beginning of a song. By now, Riley was done yelling at the neighbors, but he still watched them in amusement. Along with another, taller figure…oh, no.

"Grandad?"

"Hush up, boy. Tom! You better not bring yo' black ass over here this time! Go hang with your new friend, _Thugnificent._" Grandad had the weirdest cadence in his voice when he tried to emphasize something. He sounded like he was doing a horrible John Witherspoon impression. Huey sat up in his bed and chanced a look out of the window, making a clinical note that the entire neighborhood was now watching – most of them seemed to have gone outside to get their mail, only to get inexplicably transfixed by the drama for today. Huey also made a brief note that this was going to be something that Jazmine was going to be highly upset about, so he began to steel himself for the verbal barrage that he knew to be coming. He went to the bathroom, picked out his hair and everything else hygienic that someone should do before stepping foot out of the house. By the time he was finished, his brother and grandfather were still at it – which didn't surprise him in the least.

Without so much as a word to the contrary (though he did notice neither of them were any closer to being ready than they had been before he went to the bathroom) Huey went downstairs, poured himself a bowl of cereal, collected the newspaper from the front step and started reading, already putting a barrier between himself and Riley for when he finally came down. Soon enough, though, he heard someone coming, and it wasn't Riley. Before Huey even got to look over the paper, it was snatched out of his hands as Grandad leaned back against the counter with a cup of coffee.

"I was reading that, Grandad." Huey had long since gotten used to Grandad's selfishness, but it never ceased to bother him when he was blatantly ignored like this. Grandad still hadn't gotten dressed, which caused Huey to look away in disgust.

"Hush, boy. It's _my_ paper, so _my_ black ass gets to read it whenever I want to." There he goes again, with the John Witherspoon impression.

Huey simply shook his head and drank the milk from his bowl, then put it in the sink before gathering his black coat, his Timberland boots and his book bag. "It's definitely going to be one of those days…oh, damn." Huey rolled his eyes and walked back to where Grandad was reading the paper, occasionally mumbling something under his breath about 'white people'. "Grandad, can you take me to the mall after school?"

Robert Jebediah Freeman looked down at his grandson as if he'd just stepped in something particularly nasty. "Maybe. Why do you wanna go, anyway? I thought you hated the mall."

"I do, but you know what happens next week."

"Next week? Uh…" Grandad looked down at the newspaper in front of him. "Oh! Usher's coming to town?"

"Ugh, no, Grandad."

"Yes he is, it says so right in the newspaper!"

"That's not what I'm talking about—wait, did you say next week?"

"Yeah, next week; the twenty-second to be exact."

"Oh." Suddenly he understood why Tom was being kicked out of his house, but that wasn't important right now. Actually, Grandad may have helped him out just now. At that exact moment, someone came running down the stairs – and they jumped the last three to land heavily on the floor. Grandad was distracted by Riley's sudden and quite hyperactive appearance enough to not take any notice that the two slices of bread he just put in the toaster had just popped out.

"Yo, Huey! Let's go outside and mess with Tom!" Usually Huey wouldn't agree to such things, but instead of being difficult, he walked calmly after his brother.

"Hey! Where's my toast!?" Huey smirked in amusement as he left through the front door, offering Riley one of the two slices of toast he'd swiped from the toaster when Grandad wasn't looking. _Yeah, it's going to be one of those days…but I'll have my moments, anyway._


	2. School Daze

Huey didn't want to approach Tom at the moment, especially when he didn't have any pants on right now. After a while, though, he did convince his wife to throw him down some clothes to go to work in (though she ended up throwing them in the bushes and the dirt in the vicinity). It was coming up on 7:20 AM by now, and the bus would be along any minute. The people at their mailboxes had all gone inside when Sarah slammed the window shut and Tom was finally free to gather his things and put his wrinkled, leaf-covered clothing on. That was when Huey decided to cross the street and speak with Tom – especially now that he some pants on.

"Mister DuBois?" Tom looked so pathetic when he turned around to face Huey, plastering on a phony smile despite the tear stains on his face. Huey could still hear his brother laughing hysterically across the street, telling all the kids gathering at the corner for the bus what was happening. That couldn't be helping Tom any, but Huey was more upset that Riley was messing with his own plans; he needed Tom to agree to something, and he wouldn't do that if he was crying like a bitch.

"Y-yes, Huey?" _It's so disgusting watching a grown man cry._

"Listen, I need a ride to the mall later today, and—" He was never able to get the full sentence out of his mouth since at that very moment, the front door to the DuBois home burst open and a pink blur struck Huey with all the force of a round of buckshot. It took Huey a few moments before he was able to process what had happened – a task that took longer than it should have, but he had to remember a few things first: _Ow…something just hit me. Why am I on my back? I don't even know my own name, anymore…oh, right. _

When his eyes focused, he found himself pinned to the ground by Jazmine, his next door neighbor, and Tom's bi-racial daughter. Today, she wore her light pink jacket and a purple skirt for whatever reason, and her hair had been platted, much like Riley's, except hers reached down to her upper back and the shells holding each braid together rattled softly together each time she moved. Last but not least, she had her arms around Huey's neck, making it quite difficult to breathe as she sobbed heavily into his neck.

"Mom and dad are fighting, Huey! They don't love me anymooooore!" Huey would have been glad to reassure her that this wasn't the case, but he couldn't even breathe, let alone talk. He began to struggle with her, pushing at her shoulders for dear life. From his upside-down perspective, Huey could see that his brother was now laughing so hard that he couldn't even stand, and even the rest of the kids around him were starting to show signs of holding back laughter, though most of them seemed to feel kind of bad that Huey was Jazmine's object of affection. As for Tom, he'd been so surprised by Jazmine's appearance and words that he still stood there in shock. _What are you just standing there for, you sell-out?! Help me!_ That was when he heard a familiar rumbling sound that caught almost everyone's attention. _Oh, shit._ The school bus roared past them and stopped at the corner where all the children had gathered, allowing them onto it. Since the door was facing the bus stop, the driver didn't even notice that Jazmine was currently on top of Huey, and Riley sure as hell wasn't about to stop laughing to tell the driver to hold on. Huey struggled harder with Jazmine, but she refused to budge and, if it was at all possible, she started to cry even harder. Even by the time nearly fifteen kids got seated on the bus, Jazmine was still at it, and the huge, yellow vehicle rumbled off. _Perfect. We missed the bus._

Jazmine didn't seem to be aware of this, though, since she was still sobbing against his neck. By the time Tom gathered enough courage to try and console his daughter, the front door opened again, knocking him into the bushes. There stood Sarah, Tom's wife, fully dressed and royally pissed off beyond all reason.

"Don't you touch her, Tom! And clean up this mess!" She grabbed the car keys from his pocket and picked Jazmine in one arm, pinning her daughter to her side and Huey in the other. "Hey, Huey. Need a ride to school?" Huey was too busy trying to catch his breath to respond, but she'd instantly gone from vengeful to friendly when referring to him and Jazmine. Not even giving the two of them a chance to respond, she opened the car and put them both in the back seat, smiling brightly. "Buckle up for safety!" Huey had never been able to get past how expressive those deep blue eyes of hers could get, and at the moment she was still pissed at Tom, which made her smile more disturbing to look at than reassuring. She looked, for lack of a better word, deranged. _Wait, how's Tom gunna get to work?_ _Isn't this their only car?_ Huey didn't say anything, though, as Sarah got into the driver's seat and pulled out of the driveway, while Tom simply lay in the bushes, seemingly unconscious. For the most part, Jazmine remained quiet save for the occasional quiet sniffle.

"Miss DuBois?"

"Yes, Huey?" He paused for a moment, unsure of how to ask this question without sounding completely insensitive.

"Can you take me to the mall after school?"

Sarah blinked and looked at him in the rearview mirror of her car. "The mall? Why do you want to go there?"

"Because next week is—" Jazmine started screaming again, which was just what Huey had been afraid of.

"Aww, it's okay, Jazmine! I'm sure daddy will—"

"Watch the road, Miss DuBois!"

She looked down at the road just in time to swerve around someone in their lane that was trying, horribly, to merge with traffic at about forty miles per hour – Sarah was currently going seventy. "This is why I hate Woodcrest. Too many old people driving around."

_Too many crazy white women, too._

At long last, they finally reached their elementary school – Huey had never been so happy to see the building, and suspected he would never be this glad to be here ever again. Sarah waved to the two of them cheerfully, having seemingly forgotten about everything that had happened back at home. Jazmine had stopped crying finally, but her eyes were still glassy and she still had to sniffle every now and again.

"Huey?"

"What?"

"…do you think mom and dad are going to get a, a…" She choked up again, as if she couldn't get the word out: "…disectomy?!"

Huey simply sighed and walked towards the front door, and Jazmine quickly followed behind him, latching herself to his arm.

"Well?! Huey, please tell me they won't!"

"…Jazmine. I assure you that your parents aren't going to have any 'disectomies' any time soon. Or anyone for that matter." He was sure she meant 'divorce', but he didn't have the willpower to correct her right now. Overcome by joy, she hugged him tight – all the way to the office where they had to get their late passes.

When he left, Jazmine was STILL attached to him – and he could hear the snickers of the staff members in the office following him out into the hallway. _I'm going to start carrying a crowbar with me for when she gets like this…_


End file.
